Direct access storage devices (DASD), commonly known as hard drives or hard disk drives (HDDs), have become part of every day life, and as such, expectations and demands continually increase for greater speed for manipulating data and for holding larger amounts of data.
In order to improve the performance of hard disk drives, many of them are currently operated at higher rotation speeds than in the past. As a result, new methods and components have been implemented in order to ensure that the hard disk drives operate at optimal conditions. For example, Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB) have replaced conventional ball bearing assemblies in many hard disk drives due to their superiority with regard to vibration and generated noise. However, under some operating conditions, FDBs can create problems which were not encountered when ball bearing assemblies were more commonly used. Under some operating conditions, the loss of lubricant from FDBs can cause contamination of the hard disk drive and can degrade the performance of the FDB with respect to vibration and reduction of friction.